Thoughts from Mike Templeton

Defining Your Personal Brand

July 18, 2008 in Marketing | No Comments →

This article was written for GenerationIowa, your one-stop shop for everything young Iowa.

As consumers and jobseekers spend more time online, it’s only natural for employers to start doing the same. This can be a curse – or a blessing – depending on how well you have defined your personal brand.

First things first, if you do not own the domain for your name (www.firstnamelastname.com), purchase it now. Google and the other search engines love keyword rich domain names, and if you own your name as a domain, that should rank very well when an employer is doing a search on you.

See the rest of the article at GenerationIowa.

WordPress for iPhone

July 15, 2008 in Technology | No Comments →

Even with an iPhone, blogging has been somewhat limited for me, as I feel I must be at a computer to do it. Sure, I could navigate to my blog’s admin panel through Safari, but the dashboard and menus are not well-suited to being resized.

I was excited when I first heard about TypePad’s new BlogIt service that allowed users to blog and/or update their status on a variety of websites all from the comfort of their iPhone. However, upon testing the system, I could never get it to post to my self-hosted WordPress blog.

This morning I caught wind of a WordPress app for the iPhone via a post on Andy Brudtkuhl‘s blog, Get a New Browser.

With the imminent release of a WordPress app for the iPhone, I should no longer be bound by the ethernet cat-5 cables of the world and will be free to blog from wherever I want. This means you’ll be getting many more of my thoughts on a regular basis.

Now I just have to wait for the app to be released.

The original post is at the “official home of the WordPress iPhone Application“.

What Happens When Everyone Stops 'Using' Social Networks?

June 23, 2008 in Opinion, Social Media | 1 Comment →

Today I saw a link on Twitter described as a ‘funny video about social media‘. The video is from Current and is titled, ‘Social Networking Wars‘. The video follows a situation between a grungy, Metallica-fanboy Gen Yer who isn’t logging in to his MySpace profile anymore. The MySpace logo starts whining about how he hasn’t logged in forever, and that MySpace has emailed him several times about a friend request, but still, the guy just doesn’t get excited about logging in. ‘”I’ll check it out when I get some time,” he says.

We’re better than them!

Next up comes the Facebook logo (where the user also has a profile), and Facebook brags about how he is better than MySpace. After Facebook comes a flurry of other social network logos, all vying for the guy’s time and proclaiming how each of them is superior to the other.

The scapegoat of the group is Friendster, whom everyone left back in the day for MySpace because it was the cooler place to be. Now users are leaving MySpace for Facebook. But for what? Users are leaving janky, neon-colorized profiles for a place that let’s you bite, poke and hug your friends, right after you send them an e-teddy bear for $2.

Will users get fed up with social networking?

What will happen when people get tired of these social networks that just don’t have any real benefit to them? The guy in the video mentions, “I’ve wasted a lot of time playing around with you during the day and at my job, but now it’s time for me to get back to the real world.” Will we see a time in the near future where people drop the ‘fun’ and ‘cultural’ websites for those that are actually productive or beneficial?

Are these sites really worth what they’ve been valued at?

Another thing that has got me thinking about this lately was a conversation with Nathan Wright of Lava Row, tweeting about the recent $1B valuation of LinkedIn and how it stacks up against Facebook at $15B.

Don’t get me wrong, I have accounts at Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and all the rest of them, but as I have to manage more and more applications and profiles on different websites, I find myself only logging on to those that I get real value from.

Now I’m wondering how many others out there are in the same boat?

Firefox 3 is Here and the Internet is a Better Place

June 22, 2008 in Technology | 1 Comment →

June 17, 2008, marked the release date for Mozilla’s latest stable version of everyone’s favorite browser, Firefox 3. As part of the roll out for the new release, Firefox organized an impressive campaign at Spread Firefox to get the word out and to try to set a new world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.

The World Record

After the stopwatch stopped ticking, over 8,000,000 downloads of Firefox 3 had been recorded, easily more downloads than they have ever had in a single day. The Guiness Book of World Records is currently reviewing the attempt.

The Campaign

In a market where Firefox is already powering 39.8% of all internet browsing, the release for Firefox 3 was a change for Mozilla to launch themselves even farther into the fight for browser supremacy.

The campaign website, an offshoot from Spread Firefox, included several promotional components and an interactive pledge map where users could sign up and pledge to download FF3 on Download Day.

The Browser

So I’ve talked about all the hub-bub and excitement (see what people are saying about FF3 on Twitter), but what about the browser itself? I’m glad you asked.

FF3 defines they’re key areas of focus around new features, security, productivity and customization. There are 15,000 new improvements to this release, including instant site ID, improved rendering performance, over 5,000 add-ons and the highly acclaimed Awesome Bar.

The Awesome Bar has got to be one of my favorite additions to this browser. Deb Richardson does a great job explaining it in her post:

Dubbed the “AwesomeBar”, it lets you use the URL field of your browser to do a keyword search of your history and bookmarks. No longer do you have to know the domain of the page you’re looking for — the AwesomeBar will match what you’re typing (even multiple words!) against the URLs, page titles, and tags in your bookmarks and history, returning results sorted by “frecency” (an algorithm combining frequency + recency).

Get Firefox

If you’re still browsing in the stone age or are tired of how numb Internet Explorer is to your personal preferences, download Firefox 3 and be surprised. We’re at 16,339,047 downloads and growing…

Zoho Office FTW

June 18, 2008 in Technology | 5 Comments →

For those of you unfamiliar with popular forum lingo, FTW stands for ‘for teh win’, essentially meaning victory, greatness or any other form of celebration.

This post is celebrating the wonder that is Zoho. Zoho is an “office productivity suite” from AdventNet that let’s you do word processing, fill out spreadsheets, track customers, write invoices and more, all from the comfort of your own browser.

The best part about Zoho, and many other similar products available on the web, is that they are all available for free or very little money. For the college student that is strapped for cash or the struggling business owner that can’t afford the latest version of Microsoft Office, Zoho is a solution that can work.

My first interaction with Zoho began several months ago when I was introduced to their CRM product. I found Zoho in a roundabout way while Googling for “free CRM solution”. I looked at and tried a few different products, but an ad for Zoho finally drew me away from my search results.

After reading through the details on Zoho CRM and realizing that I (plus two other users) could use the full functionality of the program for free, I was intrigued and ready to get started. From an application standpoint, Zoho CRM mirrors Salesforce very closely. I use Salesforce at work so the Zoho controls and settings were fairly intuitive.

I began loading contacts and accounts for the automotive community that I manage and was publishing invoices for community merchandise with a few hours. It was that easy.

Recently, after growing so fond of Zoho CRM, I decided it was time to branch out to another one of their offerings that would solve another problem I was having: project management. In comes Zoho Projects to save the day!

Zoho Projects let’s you manage one project for free, so I loaded up my first Dosovo client project and started working through the project details. I could create task lists and milestones, upload and create documents (via Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet), track my time via timesheets and give clients access to the process to see things moving along.

Things worked so smoothly for the first project, I ponied up $8 and upgraded to the next subscription level (allowing me to track more projects at once) and added two other projects with similar tasks, goals and timesheets.

After I had all of my projects loaded and hours locked and loaded, then it was time for billing. That’s where Zoho succeeds again, because Zoho Projects ties right into Zoho Invoice. Invoice let’s you drive invoicing efforts directly from your project files or you can input items manually.

Last night I set up options for automated billing messages, filled in my company details, added PayPal payment option information and generated my first invoice. I shipped it off via email in an instant and never had to leave my office chair.

The few applications I’ve described above represent only a fraction of the tools available. If you’re looking for a cost effective, efficient, access-from-anywhere online office suite, be sure to give Zoho a try and tell them I sent you. ;)

Also, if you’re on Twitter, Zoho is there too. I’ve had great conversations with @zohoinvoice and @arvindnatarajan.

Late Nights Still Win

June 9, 2008 in Daily Musings, Technology | 5 Comments →

And I thought my days of late nights and droopy eyelids were over once I graduated from college. Not so, says I. As a 22 year old entrepreneur with a full time job, a wife, a garage to build, a side business to run and an automotive community to manage, it’s sometimes difficult to remember to eat.

As the days seem to fly by, I try to find the best ways to help manage my time and track what I’ve been working on. Often times the good old pen and paper win out, but I also use a few other tools.

During the day, at my regular job, I use Microsoft Outlook’s Calendar feature to manage my meetings and use flags and folders to organize my tasks via the inbox. This works well because it ties in to the rest of the company and allows others to see what I’m busy with.

Over my lunch hour and at breaks in between projects I try to update my Google Calendar with personal and side business events. This includes any client meetings I may have and trips back home to spend time with the family. Google Calendar (GCal) is part of my larger Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD) setup and allows for complete integration with my other Google Apps. GCal is also great for scheduling meetings or plans with people outside your network. Just punch in the recipient’s email and away goes your invitation. They can accept the invite and add it to their own Google Calendar, or accept it in Microsoft Outlook. This flexibility in Google’s invite system is ingenious IMO.

Once I get home from the day job, its time to start thinking about Dosovo, the marketing and web strategy LLC I run on the side. To track my work on client projects I use Zoho Projects. Projects is a project management tool from Zoho, an office productivity suite from AdventNet Inc. The program is completely web-based and allows me to access it via a custom URL, making it easy to find wherever I am. Projects not only tracks the completion of tasks and milestones, but also serves as a timesheet where you can track billable and non-billable hours for project work. This is a great way for me to manage my time spent on each client and bill accordingly.

When I finally finish my client projects, then it’s time to start thinking about blogging and RSS feeds. Sadly MikeThoughts.com ends up near the bottom of my to-do list, but I do love blogging and using this outlet to voice what I’m thinking.

And now that I’ve shared how my late nights come about and what I use to make the most of them, maybe you’d care to share what you use to stay organized and on top of things?

A World of Choices, A Few Constants

June 2, 2008 in Opinion, Social Media, Technology | No Comments →

In the social media realm it seems that new services are popping up all the time. Almost every new site launches in private beta and hands out invites to a select few who spread them around. I do my best to track down invites to new sites so I can check them out, but whether or not I go back is another story.

Over the past six to eight months, I’ve probably signed up for 20+ new websites or services. Some of my favorites include Twitter, Yelp and Bright Kite. Others that I’ve registered on, such as Digg and Ma.gnolia, are interesting in their own respects, but I don’t use them quite as often as others.

Anyone can launch a new site or service, but the real trick is getting first time visitors to come back again. Here’s my take on what makes a successful launch:

Create a unique service. Offer your users the ability to do something different. Enable them to accomplish a task in a way they’ve not thought about before.
Make it easy to use. Bulky user interfaces with too many extra features won’t fly. If it’s not easy to operate, people will ditch it for something that is.
Make it easy to share. Develop widgets that users can add to their own websites or share with their friends. Create RSS feeds with your data and allow people to interact with it.
Make it personal. Let users set their own variables. Give them options. If they want to access your site from a mobile device, give them that option.

There are many other things to take into consideration when building something new, but these four points are essential in my mind. If you fail at one of these, you’ll have a hard time keeping people around.

As Friendster and Bebo know, audiences can come and go. Keep yours coming back by taking some time to think about your own future.

Ninja CSSing

May 28, 2008 in Technology | 1 Comment →

As a member of the internet that embraces the ideas of openness, transparency and sharing, I am always looking at other websites, blogs and services as an opportunity to expand my own knowledge. For the most part, all of my HTML, PHP, CSS, etc. skills have been self-taught. That means I’ve bought and read through how-to guides, watched numerous online tutorials and asked other experts in the field. Each of these represent great tools for the beginner, but my favorite way to learn is still to just dive into the source code behind a website and figure out how it works.

Tonight’s learning experience came via my task of updating the logo for my blog (at the suggestion of this video). I wanted to use a graphic for the header logo, but I also still wanted the text-driven headline for search engine purposes.

By default, WordPress adds the name of your blog (in my case, Mike Thoughts) into an H1 tag at the top of the page. The title of the blog, as listed in the Settings tab of WordPress, is what gets broadcasted across the web whenever new posts are added or when you get listed in Technorati. That blog title also determines what goes into the header of the browser window you are using, so simply changing it to “mikethoughts.com” probably isn’t the best idea.

With some ninja CSS code that I scooped from Bright Kite’s stylesheet and source code, I was able to replace the title with a graphic that resembles my URL exactly, keep the actual blog title the same and include an H1 assigned header tag for the official blog title that will help me out when people start searching for my site.

The source code for the page looks pretty normal. It has a header wrapper, a logo tag, the link for the logo and the website headline, just like we wanted. But how do you get your logo to show up instead of the headline text? That’s where the ninja CSSing comes into play.

The logo is handled fairly standardly, with an id tag and attributes for hyperlinks (the “a” part of the tag). This syntax tells the website to insert the masthead_logo.png image wherever the #logo div is included with an a href tag. The second part of the solution, and where the magic really happens, is the simple inclusion of a span tag with display: none as the attribute. Wrap this span tag around your blog title headline and it will disappear when viewed in the browser, but will reappear when viewing the source code.

Now that I’ve explained how Bright Kite got it to work, take a look at my files and see if you can’t figure out how I got my blog title working with the rollover image and hidden H1 headline.

Thanks to Daniel Scocco for making the YouTube video that spawned this small project and thanks to Bright Kite for helping me learn a few new CSS tricks to add to my arsenal.

Slight URL Malfunction

May 27, 2008 in Daily Musings, Technology | No Comments →

Not really, but if you’re reading this post that means you must have found the blog at its new URL, http://mikethoughts.com.

Earlier this afternoon I was migrating some RSS feeds from my Bloglines account into Google Reader and I got to thinking about the name of my blog. Most of the (good) blogs out there have catchy names and URLs, but I’d never come up with anything for my own. I went with the easy http://miketempleton.info and just had “Mike Templeton’s Blog” listed as the title. Sure it works, but as a marketer and creative thinker, I thought my blog deserved better than that.

Deciding to think of something creative is much easier than actually coming up with something creative though. As one of probably millions of Mike’s in the world, most of the great domain names have already been scooped up. Not to be discouraged, I dove deep into thought and started punching ideas into my GoDaddy search bar. One idea after another, they were all taken.

Next I started examining what my blog was about. It is a personal blog, but I try to keep it on somewhat informative and useful topics. Most of my entries are things I am thinking about during the day or while driving to work, but the blog allows me to type them out and share with others. These entries were my thoughts spilled out on the keyboard. They were “Mike Thoughts.” And so my new domain and blog name were chosen.

I’ve still got the http://miketempleton.info domain and will probably turn it into an information lookup about myself (contact details, account names, services I participate in, etc.).

I ended up having to rework my permalink structure and reset the Google Analytics, but luckily my blog had only been running for a few months, so the damage will be minimal. I ended up purchasing the domain name, adjusting my nameservers, moving WordPress and setting up the domain map all in about 30 minutes. GoDaddy is very quick during normal business hours and I’ve got to thank them for that.

Please adjust your bookmarks, blogrolls and RSS feeds and I promise I’ll stay on track moving forward. :)

Yelping All Over Town

May 18, 2008 in Social Media | 2 Comments →

If you haven’t heard of Yelp before, now is the time to check it out.

Yelp is “the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great (and not so great) in your world.”

In my own words, Yelp is a website where you can find addresses, photos, phone numbers and reviews of local businesses in your area. Instead of flipping through the Yellow Pages or skimming Google when you’re looking for a good place to eat, simply log on to your local Yelp section and find exactly what you’re after. Yelp also has a mobile version available for those with web-enabled phones (which makes the service even more feasible because its always with you).

I first learned about Yelp several months ago when someone from the Seattle area was talking about how she used Yelp to help promote the place she worked at. She explained that through building her Yelp profile and giving honest reviews of local businesses, she was able to make a name for herself as an expert “Yelper” in the area. As more and more locals learned about her and what it was that she did (marketing manager at a credit union), she became the resident “financial expert” in the eyes of other users. Whenever a financial question would pop up in the online community, she was the first person everyone talked to. Through all of this reputation building for her own name, it also helped elevate her employer’s level of awareness in the area and theoretically aided in driving more traffic through their doors.

After hearing the story about her experience with Yelp, I was interested to see what was happening with Yelpers in my area. Unfortunately, as I soon realized, not much at all was happening, neither in Ankeny or Des Moines. There is some traffic and usage, though not nearly as great as the Yelp hot spots like San Francisco (where Yelp started) or Seattle.

Being a lover of all things social media, I’ve taken it upon myself to embrace this website and to try to do my part in helping building the local Yelp community. I’m nowhere near the Yelp Elite level, but maybe it’s something I can aspire to be. :)

I’d also like to try leveraging the site for local businesses as a central feedback mechanism and see what kind of impact it has on business. Some eateries haven’t been quite so happy with Yelp (due to some public, negative reviews), but I think the purpose behind the site is good. In today’s highly interconnected world, if someone doesn’t like your business or has a negative opinion to voice, people are going to hear about it one way or the other, so why not just embrace the medium and see it as an opportunity to grow?

As a website trying to succeed in the Web 2.0 space, I think Yelp is doing a fine job. Everything they display comes directly from the users. Users submit the photos, write the reviews, add new business listings, update old data and help promote the site. I’m happy to be a user and can’t wait to see more locals using it.

For some of my latest reviews, check out Rookies Sports Bar & Grill, Breadeaux Pizza, Cafe Diem and Noodle Zoo. Be sure to add me as a friend once you get signed up on the site.

Happy Yelping!